Once the Beast is Vanquished
by Wickedly Caskett
Summary: Warning: SPOILERS from the 6x17 promos. A head canon of what I wish will happen after 6x17 next week. After the ordeal Beckett has faced, Castle and Beckett head back to the loft to recoup and relax. A fluffy little thing I suppose.


Well it's been a long time! Hey everyone.

This was inspired from a tumblr post about what people hope happens after 6x17 and for once I felt like posting it up here. Someday I'll collect those ficlets off my tumblr and rework them and get them up here. Someday. Hope you guys enjoy though.

WARNING: Spoilers from 6x17 Promos. Here there be SPOILERS.

* * *

It's during the ride home that she breaks.

She'd kept up a strong front, kept up that strong, undaunted Detective Kate Beckett who even after such an ordeal will finish the job. Finish what needs to be done. But now that nobody's seeing it but him, she lets it all go.

"I'm so tired, Rick," she says, her eyes bleak in the dim light in the car as they stare out into the dark city.

"You have the right to be," he says, kissing her gently on the forehead, dodging the bandage carefully.

She just curls into him, burrowing into his jacket.

Oh Kate.

They remain silent for the rest of the ride and he helps her through the lobby of his building. Eduardo, the night shift doorman, gives the battered Beckett a worried look and opens his mouth to ask to help but he shakes his head.

She remains quiet up the elevator, still seeming pretty shocked from the experience. From what she told Esposito she'd been through an ordeal. Waterboarding, being trapped in that truck, having to essentially blow her cover to not murder a man… it was Kate. Of course she didn't kill him. She must've been scared.

He sets her up on the sofa with a warm blanket and a mug of her favorite cocoa (she wasn't much of a tea fan and Mother filled the kitchen with the weirdest teas, it was like Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. You either got a good one or one so terribly awful you basically drank poison.), kissing her gently. She gives him a small smile, going in for a second kiss, wincing as she jostled her shoulder (the medic had had to put it back in place).

He doesn't want to leave her but one of the things she could use right now is a bath. She could definitely use a bath. The doctor had recommended a bath.

"I'm going to go run you a bath, okay?" he says.

She nods, smiling, "Thanks, Rick."

He walks to his office, glancing back at her frequently, before making his way into the master bathroom. Never was he happier to have such a nice, and such a big bathtub. He turned on the water and threw in some epsom salts for good measure. This was her favorite scent of them and it wouldn't hurt for her battered body. After it was full, he turned it off and made his way back out to the living room.

"Kate?" he says, walking over to his fiancee, curled up in the blanket still but barefoot, "It's ready."

She nods and takes his hand, hoisting herself up with a grunt. Should he pick her up? She was limping pretty badly and if her clenched jaw was any indication...

He pauses and pulls her arm over his back, hoisting her up bridal style. She lets out a little gasp before focusing that familiar glare on him.

"I'm not going to break walking to your bathroom, Castle," she chastises, "I'm bruised, not broken."

"Let me pamper you?" he says, "I know you're not going to break but tonight's all about you."

She lets out a disgruntled noise before nodding, cuddling into his chest. He carries her into his bathroom, letting her down softly, pulling her battered turtleneck off.

"Oh God, Kate," he groans, staring at the widespread damage all over her torso. There are harsh rope impressions and burns from being tied up in the truck for so long and numerous purpling bruises blooming along her body, some creeping around her neck. Various small cuts and scrapes act as the foreground to that background of purple bruises. In the middle, as always, sits her bullet scar. The symbol of her survival. How she'll always survive no matter what the odds. She works her own bra off one-handedly, using the arm that hadn't been dislocated. His hand brushes over the scar, and he leans down, kissing it. Her hand squeezes his.

He helps her out of her pants and underwear, and he quickly strips down. Gesturing for her to wrap her arm around him again he lifts her again, receiving a half-hearted glare in return. He lowers her down into the water and settles into the warm water behind her. He tugs her back so that she's cradled against him, his arms wrapped around her gently. For a while, that's how they stay, just breathing each other in. She traces patterns on his arms and he revels in her breathing, her heartbeat, her life.

"We should get you clean," he says quietly. He feels her nod against him and he reaches for a loofa, quickly preparing it with the least irritating body wash he owns. It's hers, actually. The cherry one that haunted him from the beginning.

"It was so hard," she says, as he starts with her arms, lifting up the undislocated one and gently scrubbing away the dirt and the grime from it.

"Once I realized who Elena Markov really was I… I fell into auto-drive. All that stuff I learned with the CIA, with Agent McCord. Finish the mission. Finish the mission. No matter what."

The grime falls away in the water he pours over it, leaving only the angry red marks and the blossoming purple bruises.

"But then I had to do something about the hit. I couldn't refuse it without making it incredibly obvious that I was an impostor. I had to go through with it, at least most of it. But I knew I wouldn't be able to kill someone to keep my cover. That's why I couldn't be CIA I guess," she says, laughing darkly, "I can't turn off my morality for the sake of the mission."

"That's a good thing though," he interrupts, "That's who you are. You never stand down when it comes to what's right."

She nods again, "And that's when it all fell apart. He knew. He guessed that I was a faker- maybe I was too obvious, maybe I was too different from Elena to truly pass as her, maybe I was too nosy. But he knew. And then it was all over. I got bound, gagged, and the next thing I knew I was thrown into a white truck."

He leans in to kiss the cuts on her wrists, gently working his way around where it had so bitterly cut into her. Next he kisses the scrape on her elbow, her bicep, her shoulder. So many rope burns.

"I was banged around like crazy. I could barely get that last message out to you guys. Lucky I did, huh."

He makes his away across the purpling of her back, tracing each wound with feathering kisses.

"Next thing I know I'm in a dingy room facing a trough of ice water with a man behind me, a fistful of my hair in his hands, sometimes just my neck, yelling questions about who I was, what I was after, who did I work for. Each punctuated with a dive into that ice."

He gently ran the loofa over the purpling bruises on her neck, kissing around those brutal handprints left behind by the interrogator. Goddamnit. If only they'd gotten to her sooner they should've just pulled her out-

"They decided they weren't getting anything out of me that way. Some higher up said to just shoot me. Don't know why they didn't try other torture first, guess I'm lucky in that sense. There was some argument in some Slavic language. Think it was over that. Ended in me getting hauled out by the arm- thus the shoulder- into the green you guys found me in."

Gently he lifts the injured arm, diligently getting away the dirt from the wounds and giving it the same treatment. If only kisses could fix all of this for her. If only.

"He tried one last time to get me to tell him everything but I refused. I told him that my people would hunt him, kill him if he killed me. He didn't care. I was on my knees and had basically accepted that this was where it ended. No miracle was going to happen this time. I was well and truly alone in this one."

She lifted up her right leg, mostly unharmed save a few bruises, and he helped wash off the accumulated grime from it as well. Her left soon followed afterwards. Thank God, thank God they had figured it out. Thank God she had been able to leave those clues, thank god they had been able to find her in time.

"But then I wasn't. I wasn't alone. You guys found me, and I almost got shot in the head. And now it's all wrapped up. It's over."

He turns her around to face him, very carefully cleaning the cut to her head of dirt, kissing around it diligently before just capturing her lips with his. He pretended not to notice the tears.

It's over.

It's over.


End file.
